Confirmed: 9 Sanctuaries at launch.

[Malorn]

How is it people think that because a foothold exists it will be a perfect 3-way stalemate?

In PS1, an empire could always come back through a warpgate and attack a continent, be it a direct sanctuary link or a broadcast link. There is no change from that other than saving you the loading screen and making it a lot easier to wage an effective offensive by giving you easier access to vehicles. Cutter said it best: foothold = sanctuary + warpgate - loading screen. The only thing this hurts is the footzerg that used to erupt when an offensive lost its vehicles and couldn't bring more due to a poplock on the continent. Having to go back to sanctuary to get a tank and then go back through the warpgate was just time consuming and slowed down the game and discouraged people from bringing tanks. That lack of vehicles often led to a failed offensive and a continued locked continent.

All a cont "lock" did was give the lock benefit and prevent HARTing in. There is no HART in PS2, and there's plenty of other ways to introduce a benefit without capturing every piece of territory or without locking out other players access to the continent.

I love all these 3-way stalemate diagrams - the foothold has no impact on that result whatsoever because in all those diagrams each empire has 3 or more facilities, and the existence of those footholds doesn't change that. It's fundamentally flawed thinking.

Another thing not being considered is the impact of resources. An empire who has a foothold (and nothing else) on the continent will be resource starved and likely limited in what sort of vehicles and upgrades their troops will be using compared to the other empires that might be present. In PS1 if you didn't get a tech plant on a continent there was a strong chance you'd get pushed back to that warpgate. Resources fill that role in PS2. Not enough resources => fewer tanks and other upgraded vehicles.

And of course population. 3 continents - is every empire going to be poplocked on ever one and evenly balanced all the time? Hell no. It's going to shift around and some empires will ahve higher populations on certain continents but not others. Those population differences will change how the continental battles play out. Late-night play will likely see lots of territory changing hands on lesser-populated continents.

Between shifting populations and resources (not to mention strategy and tactics of the outfits present) you will see a lot of territory changing hands. If an empire loses too much, they will have a competitive disadvantage in resources and could likely be pushed back to the foothold.


And lets go back to the reason they added the footholds - to keep each continent meaningful and NOT lock out huge chunks of content from other players. With the footholds, it's always possible to have a battle on any continent you want to. That doesn't mean you'll be on even ground with your opponents there, but you aren't locked out of it.

Locking out is bad. It limits the game and funnels people into only a few fight options. Not having footholds on each continent would similarly be bad. Its hard enough to break into a continent dominated by an empire who has all the resources. Its always easier to defend. Footholds give the attackers a bone so we can keep interesting fights going all over the globe in PS2.

Seeing a map of 3 continents nad having 2 of them locked and the third has the entire population of a PS2 server on it is just dumb. There are other ways to get the sense of accomplishment that you seek without locking out the content to other players.